Three decades ago, Gujarat missed the opportunity to establish itself as a leader in the information technology sector. Today, as the world undergoes another digital revolution, history is repeating itself. With the surge in internet usage, mobile data consumption, and the growing need for digital infrastructure, data centres have become the backbone of the modern economy. While global tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are investing heavily in data centres across India, Gujarat remains absent from the list of key locations, raising concerns about whether the state is once again failing to seize a transformative economic opportunity.
India generates 20% of the world’s data, and Indian users consume an average of 24 GB of data per month—second only to China. With the expansion of digital services like banking, insurance, stock markets, and UPI payments, data consumption is projected to increase further. The Indian government passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act in 2023, mandating that most Indian data remain within the country. This regulation has further increased the demand for data storage. According to a report by leading research firm CRISIL, India’s current data centre capacity is 1.2 gigawatts, which is expected to double to 2–2.5 gigawatts by 2027. Around ₹55,000 crore is being invested in this sector. However, even with this expansion, the demand for data centres is expected to outstrip supply. In response, states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra have rolled out special policies and fast-track approvals to attract data centres. However, Gujarat, known as India’s economic growth model, has no specific policies or provisions for data centres. Despite having ample land, office space, industrial parks, and an uninterrupted power supply, the state has failed to create an attractive policy for data centre investments. While some companies and GIFT City have small captive data centres for their own needs, Gujarat does not have a single commercial data centre.
Gujarat has no data centres
Most of India’s data centres are concentrated in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, followed by Chennai, Hyderabad, and Noida. Even in future proposals, these locations—along with Bengaluru—continue to dominate, while Gujarat remains absent from discussions. Despite being a leader in industries like pharmaceuticals, textiles, chemicals, diamond polishing, automobiles, and cement, Gujarat has no presence in the data centre sector. Uninterrupted, high-speed internet is a critical requirement for data centres India has around 15 submarine cable landing stations that connect the country to the global internet network, most of which are in Mumbai and Tamil Nadu. Gujarat has none. The absence of these landing stations means that Gujarat lacks the high-speed network infrastructure necessary for large-scale data centres.
Gujarat lags in IT exports
India is a global leader in IT services exports, but Gujarat contributes less than 1% to the country’s total IT exports. Although the state government has introduced special policies to attract IT investments, including subsidies and incentives, Gujarat has not been able to keep up. If this trend continues, the state is likely to fall behind in the data centre sector as well.
What is a Data centre?
A data centre is a specialised facility where vast amounts of data are stored and processed. These centres are connected to computing networks and designed for secure and efficient data storage and retrieval. They require a constant power supply and high-speed internet connectivity to function seamlessly. When a command is given, data can be stored or accessed instantly. The infrastructure includes large storage systems arranged in racks, along with high-capacity processors. However, setting up a data centre is a complex and expensive process—each megawatt of capacity requires land and an investment of ₹70 crore–75 crore. Data centre capacity is measured based on the power required for computing operations. A 2-megawatt data centre means it can perform computing functions requiring 2 megawatts of power per second. In comparison, the processing power of personal computers is measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS).
